The American space
agency said, a plans for the first time in the world to send to Mars in 2020 a mini helicopter - a miniature unmanned vehicle, which is designed to significantly
deepen our understanding of the Red Planet.
The Mars Helicopter,
this device weights less than 1.8 kilograms, and its fuselage is about the size
of a standard grapefruit.
This helicopter will be
based on the bottom of the new Martian rover Mars 2020, the wheeled all-terrain
vehicle, whose main goals are to determine the potential fitness for Martian
life, search for traces of extraterrestrial life, and assess the availability
of natural resources and threats to future researchers of the Red Planet.
It is planned that the
mission of Mars 2020 will be sent to the Red Planet in 2020, and will arrive in
February 2021. In order to fly in a thin Martian atmosphere, the helicopter
should be very light and powerful. NASA engineers propose to equip the
helicopter with a pair of coaxial screws, the rotation speed of which will be
almost 3000 rpm - about 10 times higher than the helicopter propeller speed
flying in the atmosphere of our planet.
This helicopter will be
prepared with solar panels, through which it can recharge your lithium-ion
batteries.The helicopter will be controlled by operators from the Earth. It is
planned to perform test flights of this apparatus within 30 days, each
subsequent of the five flights scheduled for this period will last longer than
the previous one. Thus, it is planned to reach the last test flight of a
helicopter moving without recharging for a distance of approximately 100
meters.
According to NASA, this
helicopter will become an easy calculation to the cross-country mission Mars
2020 - if the helicopter tests are successful, NASA will acquire a valuable
tool for inspection and management of the rover, and in case of unsuccessful
tests the loss of the helicopter will not affect the scientific performance of
the main mission.
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